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Sometimes just getting out of the house and doing something you haven't done in a long time (or never done!) can open up the doors to musical inspiration.

You've got to put interesting people around you; you've got to work with people who are gonna inspire you to take the songs you've written into a completely different direction, because there's nothing more boring than going to the studio and predictably knowing what is going to happen.

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.

I kind of just stumbled into producing. It was more that I was a writer, and the only way you were going to get your songs done was to do them yourself.

Sometimes I don't go into the studio for quite a while because I haven't found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I'm going to be playing them for the rest of my life. I start off with a circle of friends whose songs I love anyway.

I needed an opportunity to get back in the studio and get my recording chops back together.

I get so fed up with the making of an album taking over my life - it's all I can think about or talk about. You find yourself in a rut and lacking inspiration and it's hard to get out of that because I'm working alone in the studio.

I don't want to get caught up and be an artist always on the go. Because once you do that, it's hard to get into the studio and do what I do.